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The Diary of Johann Augustus Sutter
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Historical SummaryON The AFTERNOON of January 24, 1848, nine days before the formal transfer of California from Mexico to the United States, James W. Marshall, employed by Johann Augustus Sutter to build a sawmill on the South Fork of the American River about forty miles from Sacramento, discovered some shining yellow particles in the tailrace of the mill. Four days later he took them to Sorter. Behind locked doors they tested the specimens and found them to be virgin gold. Despite an attempt at secrecy the story was soon out, spread from ranch to ranch by vaqueros (cowboys). The Mormon elder, Samuel Brannan of San Francisco, took a flying trip for his paper, the California Star, and on his return from the mines, ran through the streets holding aloft a bottle filled with gold and shouting: "Gold! Gold! Gold! From the American River!" Frenzy seized the town. San Francisco and its environs were depopulated almost instantly. Waiter Colton, a naval pastor, describing the terrific excitement caused by the news at Monterey, wrote: "The blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were off for the mines,—some on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches, and one went in a litter." They came from the ends of the earth—around the Horn, across the isthmus of Panama, and overland, the most hazardous route of all. AS the forty-niners journeyed to California they sang a parody of O Susanna, which went: I’ll scrape the mountains very clear,I’ll drain the rivers dry.A pocket full of gold bringhome So brothers, don’t you cry. The greatest bonanza the world has ever known brought ruin to the co-discoverer, Sutter, a German of Swiss parentage who had come to America in 1834. A drunken cock-of-the-walk with a weakness for squaws, Sutter, in his fascinating Diary quoted below, describes how the Gold Rush devoured his cattle and trampled on his rights which derived from a Mexican grant and a purchase from the Russian American Company, whose title to the region Mexico had disputed. Riches came quickly to thousands; poverty to Sutter, who vainly petitioned the government for reimbursement. In his farewell message to Congress, President Polk announced in December, 1848, both the acquisition of California and the discovery Of gold, and appended a report to the War Department, which, in the President’s own words, was made "on the spot." The reporter was Colonel R. B. Mason, military commandant of California, who supplemented his eyewitness story relating that miners obtained inside a week as much as $10,000 in gold with specimens of the yellow metal. An excerpt from Mason’s story follows the account of the discovery from Sutter’s Diary. Other gold rushes followed—at Pike’s Peak, in the Black Hills, and in the Yukon, but none resulted in as permanent and substantial a colonization and settlement of an area as did the original Gold Rush. Something more precious than gold had been discovered—California, which real-estate boosters soon depicted in superlatives. As one promotional organization modestly put it, . . . in this grand country we have the tallest mountains, the biggest trees, the crookedest railroads, the dryest rivers, the loveliest flowers, the smoothest ocean, the finest fruits, the mildest lives, the softest breezes, the purest air, the heaviest pumpkins, the best schools, the most numerous stars, the most bashful real estate agents, the brightest skies, and the most genial sunshine to be found anywhere else in North America.
Key QuoteA drunken cock-of-the-walk describes how the discovery ruins the discoverer: "For me it turned out a folly."
D. S. Watson
1932
Grabhorn Press, San Francisco, California
Gold in Them Hills
[1848]
I
[Sutter’s Diary]
January 28th [1848]: Marshall arrived in the evening, it was raining very heavy, but he told me he came on important business. After we was alone in a private room he showed me the first specimens of gold, that is he was not certain if it was gold or not, but he thought it might be; immediately I made the proof and found that it was gold. I told him even that most of all is 23-carat gold. He wished that I should come up with him immediately, but I told him that I have to give first my orders to the people in all my factories and shops.
February 1st: Left for the sawmill attended by a vaquero (Olim-pio). Was absent 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th. I examined myself everything and picked up a few specimens of gold myself in the tail race of the sawmill. This gold and others which Marshall and some of the other laborers gave to me (it was found while in my employ and wages) I told them that I would a ring got made of it so soon as a goldsmith would be here. I had a talk with my employed people all at the sawmill. I told them that as they do know now that this metal is gold, I wished that they would do me the great favor and keep it secret only six weeks, because my large flour-mill at Brighton would have been in operation in such a time, which undertaking would have been a fortune to me, and unfortunately the people would not keep it secret, and so I lost on this mill at the lowest calculation about $25,000.
 SUTTER’S FORT, NEW HELVETIA
 GOLD IN THEM HILLS
 SHERMAN MAKES GEORGIA HOWL Atlanta after the Union Army’s visitation
March 7th: The first party of Mormons, employed by me left for washing and digging gold and very soon all followed, and left me only the sick and the lame behind. And at this time I could say that every body left me from the clerk to the cook. What for great damages I had to suffer in my tannery which was just doing a profitable and extensive business, and the vats was left filled and a quantity of half finished leather was spoiled; likewise a large quantity of raw hides collected by the farmers and of my own killing. The same thing was in every branch of business which I carried on at the time. I began to harvest my wheat, while others was digging and washing gold, but even the Indians could not be keeped [sic] longer at work. They was impatient to run to the mines, and other Indians informed them of the gold and its value; and so I had to leave more as two-thirds of my harvest in the fields.
May 19th: The great rush from San Francisco arrived at the fort, all my friends and acquaintances filled up the houses and the whole fort. I had only a little Indian boy to make them roasted ripps, etc., as my cooks left me like every body else. The merchants, doctors, lawyers, sea captains. . . . etc. all came up and did not know what to do. All was in a confusion. All left their wives and families in San Francisco, and those which had none locked their doors, abandoned their houses, offered them for sale cheap—a few hundred dollars house and lot (lots which axe worth now $100,000 and more). Some of these men were just like greazy [sic]. Some of the merchants had been the most prudentest of the whole; visited the mines and returned immediately and began to do a very profitable business, and soon vessels came from every where with all kind of merchandise, the whole thrash which was laying for years unsold, on the coasts of South and Central America, Mexico, Sandwich Islands, etc. All found a good market here. . . .
I think now from all this you can form some facts, and that you can mention how thousands and thousands made their fortunes, from this gold discovery produced through my industry and energy, (some wise merchants and others in San Francisco called the building of this sawmill, another of Sutter’s folly) and this folly saved not only the mercantile world from bankruptcy, but even our General Government. But for me it has turned out a folly, then without having discovered the gold, I would have become the richest wealthiest man on the Pacific Shore.
Contents:
Chicago: Johann Augustus Sutter, "Gold in Them Hills," The Diary of Johann Augustus Sutter, ed. D. S. Watson in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed December 12, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AFJ1CI7R6RXTUBT.
MLA: Sutter, Johann Augustus. "Gold in Them Hills." The Diary of Johann Augustus Sutter, edited by D. S. Watson, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 12 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AFJ1CI7R6RXTUBT.
Harvard: Sutter, JA, 'Gold in Them Hills' in The Diary of Johann Augustus Sutter, ed. . cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 12 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=AFJ1CI7R6RXTUBT.
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